Camera shoots for the big view

Mortar-fired device can scan battlefields

MICHAEL P. REGAN, Associated Press

Published 5:30 am, Thursday, March 18, 2004

It was 1971, and Charles Stancil was driving back to the U.S. base in Khe Sahn, Vietnam, when "all hell broke loose."

Pinned down in the crossfire between North Vietnamese and U.S. troops, Stancil thought he could survive if only he could see what was waiting for him about 100 yards away — from the overhead perspective the young helicopter pilot was used to.

Stancil did survive, but the idea continued to rattle around in his head — until, three decades later, technology finally caught up with him.

After seeing how easily photos could be transferred between digital cameras and laptop computers, Stancil came up with a way for soldiers to get a quick bird's eye view of the battlefield.

His invention, which he calls a reconnaissance round, is essentially a digital camera packed into a mortar shell that is fired 1,800 to 2,000 feet into the air.

The shell then deploys a parachute, and the camera is rigged to transmit photos to a soldier's laptop on the ground as it floats down.

Overhead images of battlefields shot by high-altitude spy planes, satellites and unmanned drones have become essential tools for modern military planners.

But those are the tools of generals, Stancil says, and usually require too much time and logistics to offer real-time images to soldiers in the middle of a fight.

"For instance in Iraq," he said, "If you're in a village and you're about to move through the village, you want to know who is on top of the buildings." With the reconnaissance round, he said, "you can get an answer to that in 90 seconds or less."

Stancil developed the reconnaissance round with the help of a $1.7 million grant from the Navy as part of his work as a researcher at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. He has shown the device to Army and Marines officials and hopes it will be approved for development by the fall.

He faces stiff competition, however. Developers of unmanned aerial vehicles now offer personal UAVs small enough to fit in a soldier's backpack.

Stancil notes that his device is a fraction of the cost — a production model has an estimated $700 price tag — and is easier to use than UAVs.

"If you're going to fly a UAV, I got to tell you that's a special skill," Stancil said. "Not everybody's going to be capable of flying a UAV."

"We don't have anything right now you could put in the hands of a young sergeant so he can see what's on the other side of a hill or above a built-up area without exposing himself," O'Connor said. "Chuck's device, I think, is probably one of the closest ones that we'd be able to field in a short time."

Stancil has been testing the device at farms in Georgia, firing it skyward with a compressed gas launcher.

He and his team of eight started launching the device in 2001 and had to clear several hurdles before it would release its parachute and transmit the photos properly.

"The batteries got a little bit angry at about 7,000 Gs," Stancil said, referring to the high rate of acceleration at which mortar rounds hurtle through the air. "Batteries tend to lose their charge based upon their tolerance of Gs."

To send the pictures, Stancil used off-the-shelf radio transmitters and receivers that zap the shots to the ground at 1 megabyte per second.

Surprisingly, the off-the-shelf camera components he used performed well at the high speeds — even when the device's parachute failed in an early test, and the reconnaissance round plummeted to earth.

When Stancil and his team finally found the mortar round and dug it up, the camera had worked, taking pictures even though it had crashed. Under normal circumstances, the mortar shell will stay in the air with a parachute for about 70 seconds, taking one picture every 17 seconds.

A production model would self-destruct after hitting the ground, so the enemy could not learn how the device works.

Now that the parachute problems and other bugs are worked out, Stancil says the device is ready for action.

"I'm really dedicated to this because I think it can save lives," he said. "It literally has the capability to shift the paradigm, so you don't walk into an ambush."